Fic: Thicker Than Water (6b/10)
Fic: Thicker Than Water (6b/10)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Vampires are not nice monsters. Especially vampires embroiled in a nest war.
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: R for violence
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #95 New Year The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6a, Part 6b, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
Once the yawning, gaping hole that was his hunger had been filled, Dean could get a better handle on his senses.
He dozed - and his dreams were eerily similar to a world that had been made for him once by a Jinn that he’d hunted. His mom was alive. Sam was engaged. But where that world had differences that were jarring, this one felt like coming home to a place he never knew he’d missed.
Dad was there. His little brother was his best friend - the other half of his own soul. And every night, he lay down in the arms of a sarcastic blonde reporter. When he looked into her eyes, he could see the echo of his own future stretching to infinity. Could imagine her belly - round and heavy with his son. A boy with his dirty-blonde hair and her dark green eyes. Could watch that child grow to manhood with his family by his side.
He awoke to the physical ache of certainty that none of it was real, and that he had no hope of even a fraction of that happiness. The despair was enough to leave him tugging at the chains in a fruitless bid for the freedom to go out and end it all. When he figured out that was useless, he sat there and brooded over the situation.
He wasn’t a whiny little emo bitch like this normally. So it must be part of the transformation. The first time they’d hunted vampires, Dad had told him that the creatures mated for life. It was part of their whole strategy for getting The Colt: grab the alpha vampire’s mate and hold her for ransom.
Now, with the perspective of actually being inside a vampire’s skin: inside the thought process, he knew exactly why vampires were faithful. It had nothing to do with instinct and everything to do with emotion. Humans loved. Vampires loved with a completeness that bordered on frightening obsession.
He hadn’t been himself, earlier. But even with the hunger driving him, his emotional side had been stronger than the instinct to hunt. And there was one dominant urge that permeated him: finding his family and making sure that he didn’t lose them.
He shuddered when he thought about how methodical he’d been in trapping Sam and Chloe in the apartment. If Chloe hadn’t had such a strange heartbeat, and Sam’s voice hadn’t coaxed his humanity back into control, Taos might be facing down three packs instead of two.
In an effort to stop these disturbing thoughts, he resorted to shamelessly eavesdropping on Chloe and Sam’s conversation.
“I think the reason they grabbed Dean instead of me is pretty much foregone.” Chloe’s voice still sounded tired. “This Aiden guy did his homework.”
“Kind of scary getting a hunt turned back on you,” Sam said. “Although I’m a little more worried about the leader of the other nest. We haven’t seen any evidence of him coming after us.”
“Aiden seems to think it’s just a matter of time.”
“Maybe we should find him first. Think he’d listen to reason?”
“Not likely,” Chloe sounded pretty sure of herself. “While you were finding a payphone to call Bobby, I used the public library’s computers to look up this dude. Lenore was right: he was Roman. And he’s survived this long through Machiavellian tactics. Which means that he would probably try to kill us based on any perceived threat. If Aiden could use me - even unwillingly, then I’m a threat for Caius to eliminate.”
“So we stick with the original plan to hole up.” Sam said.
“Did Bobby have anything helpful to contribute?”
“Not really,” Sam sighed. “I didn’t want to tell him about Dean. So he assumed that we found some baby-vampire that wanted to cross back. He pretty much told me that we were sitting on a ticking time bomb and that we need to do the right thing.”
“I don’t even know what’s right in this situation,” Chloe said. “Running sure as hell isn’t an option. I think they’d just follow.”
Dean listened to this conversation with equal parts mounting curiosity and dread. What the hell was going on out there?
“Look, I’m going to go check on him.”
“Yell if you need me,” Sam said.
It looked like he might get his answers - as he heard Chloe’s footsteps come closer to the door. Before she could knock, he called out to her.
“It’s okay to come back in,” he said.
“You heard me, huh?” she asked wryly as she stuck her head around the door.
“My hearing’s pretty sharp now,” he nodded. “Things aren’t looking too good, are they?”
“She replied with a sad smile as she slid through the doorway. “No. They aren’t.”
“Didn’t sound like it.”
“Dean - were you lying about not wanting to munch on my neck?”
“No.”
“Can I come over there then?”
Dean could see in her eyes, the longing for his touch. For physical comfort and reassurance that only he could give. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t be the best idea - given his already near-obsessive feelings about Chloe. But she’d been his mate before he’d turned. And vampires weren’t the only ones who mated for life.
“Yeah,” he said.
She knelt next to the tub and rested her cheek on the side.
“You told me earlier that Sam was my other half,” Dean said.
“There’s no doubt about that, Dean.” She said quietly. “Sometimes - it’s like I can see him when I look in your eyes.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Think I’d be here if it did? I’ve always kind of figured it was all a package deal: your love. Sam’s friendship. Anyone who doesn’t understand that wouldn’t be here with you.”
“Guess not.” He smiled at her. “Don’t quite get why, though.”
“Same reason that Sam couldn’t end things for you. Same reason I’m going along with the idea of keeping you chained up in a bathtub. This is what it’s like when you love someone, Dean,” Chloe said. “It’s not always puppies and rainbows. Sometimes it’s messy and painful, and sooner or later it’ll rip your heart out. But if you really love someone, you don’t give a damn about the pain.”
She swallowed, and in the dark, he could see her eyes droop.
“When was the last time you slept?” he asked.
“Had a bit of a coma while we were faking my way into the morgue.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not.” She chuckled mirthlessly.
“Here.” He leaned back and patted his shoulder in invitation. “Why don’t you rest?”
“Said the spider to the fly,” she grinned at him.
“I already said that you don’t sound appetizing,” Dean said. “So I’m not going to munch on you.”
She looked at him speculatively, before unholstering the tranq gun, dropping the machete, and crawling into the tub.
Once he managed to comfortably situate her, head pillowed on his chest, legs entangled, bodies pressed intimately together, it wasn’t long before she drifted to sleep. Dean watched her rest as if he were guarding a treasure. When she slept, she seemed so much like a little girl. The effect was more obvious now that her hair was starting to reach the annoying not-quite-grown-out phase, and she’d secured it out of the way with little girl barrettes and pins.
Dean reached up to stroke her cheek and press a kiss to her forehead. She still smelled like vanilla and ink. But underneath that, he could smell her body’s unique pheromones. He remembered from Daniel Elkins’s journal that vampires never forgot your scent once they had it. Now he had her scent.
He knew that he needed to savor these moments. Remember them and store them up. Because sooner or later, he was going to get out of these shackles and put an end to things. And wherever his soul was going, he’d want to keep memories of his family with him.